Marriage & Sex

Over the past few years, Christians have often been warned that we're "on the wrong side of history" in regards to same-sex marriage. Robert P. George, a law professor from Princeton and co-author of What Is Marriage, said:

I do not believe in historical inevitability …. No good cause is permanently lost. So, my advice to supporters of marriage is to stay the course. Do not be discouraged. Do what the pro-life movement did when, in the 1970s, critics said, 'The game is over; you lost; in a few years abortion will be socially accepted and fully integrated into American life ….' Speak the truth in season and out of season …. Keep challenging the arguments of your opponents, always with civility, always in a gracious and loving spirit, but firmly.

If you are told that you are on 'the wrong side of history,' remember that there is no such thing. History is not a deity that sits in judgment. It has no power to determine what is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong. History doesn't have 'wrong' and 'right' sides. Truth does. So, my message to everyone is that our overriding concern should be to be on the right side of truth.

Sometimes journalism is useful for highlighting important trends in human behavior. Other times, however, journalistic coverage of a topic does more to inflate the popularity of an idea because its novelty is sure to attract attention.

According to Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid, this is exactly what’s been happening surrounding the topic of polyamory. Hamid asked in a recent article:

Is it really popular? Or are people only saying it is. A self-fulfilling prophecy might be at work: Polyamory becomes more widespread because we think it’s already widespread. Norms around sexuality change because we think they’ve changed — even if they haven’t.

Hamid notes an uptick in interest of polyamory from Gen-Z users of dating apps like Tinder and Hinge, and cites depictions of polyamory on streaming sites like Peacock and Max. But just as in regular relationships, fantasy is much easier to maintain than reality. “In this light, polyamory offers both license and a patina of legitimacy to the exploitative sexual desires of some men.”

He also notes that despite adherents’ insistence on the infinite nature of shared love, time management is also a salient issue:

As lived experience, polyamory is difficult and often unsustainable for most mere mortals. Having one partner requires planning. Having multiple partners requires even more, which is why accounts of “polycules” always seem to involve a lot of work, making shared Google calendars an essential tool in the arsenal of love.

Jealousy, like love, is a natural human emotion: If you love someone, how realistic is it that you will want to “share” that person with someone else?... It is no accident, then, that those who try polyamory often come away disillusioned. Only about 30 percent say they would do it again, with many citing as obstacles possessiveness and “difficult to navigate” emotional aspects.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Though offering some helpful insight, this is obviously the worldly viewpoint on sexual relationships. When preaching on sexual faithfulness in marriage we must add the spiritual consequences of adultery, including Hebrews 13:4, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

Christian writer and pastor Sam Allberry tells the story of a friend who has a very bizarre spoon in his sugar bowl. It is a bit larger than a teaspoon, but it has a big hole in the middle, so it is unable to carry sugar, salt, cocoa, or pretty much anything for which you would need a teaspoon.

When he has people round, he enjoys watching them try to work out how to use it, and whether they are doing something wrong. Eventually he reveals that it’s an olive spoon, and that it is meant to have a hole in it so that you can drain the liquid as you lift the olive to your mouth.

Allberry relates this story to our sexuality. “You can’t make sense of the way the spoon is without understanding what it’s for.” And then comes the punchline: “It is true of my friend’s olive spoon and it is true of our sexuality.” In other words, you can’t understand God’s biblical commandments for sex until you know God’s design for sex.

Modern society has made sex easy and emptied it of its God given meaning. Sex has been redefined as a self-determined commodity that results in frustration and despair.

Author Jonathan Grant argues that this has occurred in five phases:

1. The separation of sex from procreation (through contraception)

2. Then the separation of sex from marriage (with the rise of cohabitation)

3. Then the separation of sex from partnership (as sex becomes temporary and recreational)

4. Next the separation of sex from another person (through the explosion of online pornography)

5. Finally, the separation of sex from our own bodies (through questioning the very categories of “male” and “female.”)

In making sex so easy and individualistic, we have cheapened it and thereby emptied it of its power. We tried to make it simpler, and we ended up making it smaller.

The Atlantic observed, “The United States is in the middle of a ‘sex recession.’ Nowhere has this sex recession proved more consequential than among young adults, especially young men.”

In 2018, the number of American adults who said they hadn’t had sex in the past year rose to an all-time high of 23 percent. The demographic having the least sex is, predictably, those older than 60. But those having the second-least amount of sex are 18 to 29. Today’s young people are having significantly less sex than their parents are.

Of the 20,000 college students surveyed by the Online College Social Life Survey from 2005 to 2011, the median number of hookups over four years was only five—and a majority of students said they wished they had more chances to get into a long-term relationship.

Americans talk a lot about sex. Anyone would think they’re having a lot of it. The behaviors now espoused—free sex, with anyone, at any time (as long as there’s consent)—seem like they’d lead to nonstop, uninhibited hookups. Instead, the opposite has happened. Young people are having less sex—and are less happy—than the married, churchgoing generation before them.

Of the hundreds of men I’ve counseled about their sexual addictions, not one has told me that after masturbating he felt stronger, more confident, and more vitally connected to the deep part of his soul. Debates over whether or not masturbation is a sin totally miss the point. The crucial question is not whether masturbation is right or wrong. The question is, as it is with any thought or behavior, does it hinder our spiritual, emotional, and social maturity? Does it stand in the way of love?

In a series of online messages, Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor Terry Crews opened up about his addiction to pornography, which he says "really, really messed up my life."

Some people say, “Hey, man ... you can't really be addicted to pornography.” But I'm gonna tell you something: If day turns into night and you are still watching, you probably have got a problem. It changes the way you think about people. People become objects. People become body parts; they become things to be used rather than people to be loved. ... Every time I watched it, I was walled off. It was like another brick that came between me and my wife. And the truth is, everything you need for intimacy is in your (partner).

Contrary to popular opinion, married couples statistically don't have worse sex than singles, but better. In their groundbreaking study, The Case for Marriage, Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher point out that 40 percent of married people have sex twice a week, compared to 20 percent of single and cohabitating men and women. Over 40 percent of married women said their sex life was emotionally and physically satisfying, compared to about 30 percent of single women. Fifty percent of married men are physically and emotionally content versus 38 percent of cohabitating men.

A survey of sexuality conducted jointly by researchers at State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of Chicago—called the "most authoritative ever" by U.S. News & World Report—found that of all sexually active people the most physically pleased and emotionally satisfied were married couples. The myth of our culture is that the single life is a life of great sex and the height of pleasure, but this is a lie.

Waite and Gallagher conclude: "Promoting marriage ... will make for a lot more happy men and women. Sex in America reported that married sex beats all else.”

In his book “Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel”, Ray Ortlund writes:

The key to understanding the sexual wisdom of [the Bible] is to combine both form and freedom, both structure and liberation. Conservative people love form and restraint and control. Progressive people love freedom and openness and choices. Both see part of the truth, but wisdom sees more. Wisdom teaches us that God gave us our sexuality both to focus our romantic joy and to unleash our romantic joy.

When our desires are both focused and unleashed—both form and freedom—our sexual experience becomes wonderfully intensified. A marriage can flourish within both form and freedom, because sex is like a fire. In the fireplace, it keeps us warm. Outside the fireplace, it burns the house down. Here's the message of the Bible: "Keep the fire within the marital fireplace, and stoke that fire as hot as you can."

One hundred decoys were placed on the Izu islands of Japan to attract endangered albatrosses and encourage them to breed. For more than two years, a 5-year-old albatross named Deko tried to woo a wooden decoy by building fancy nests and fighting off rival suitors. He spent his days standing faithfully by her side. Japanese researcher Fumio Sato, talking about the albatross’s infatuation with the wooden decoy, said, "He seems to have no desire to date real birds."

1. So it is with all people who put their affections upon the gods of this world instead of upon the Lord.

1. So it is with people who put their affection in the fantasy of pornography and not the real woman God has placed in their life.

It is the highest grace of God when love continues to flourish in married life. The first love is ardent, is an intoxicating love, so that we are blinded and are drawn to marriage. After we have slept off our intoxication, sincere love remains in the married life of the godly; but the godless are sorry they ever married.

The purpose of marriage is not pleasure and ease but the procreation and education of children and the support of a family. People who do not like children are swine, dunces, and blockheads, not worthy to be called men and women, because they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage.

Girls, don't have babies before you're ready--and "ready" means being married! Raising children is the hardest work you'll ever do. It's selfish to deny a child its best chances in life. And it's foolish to deny yourself a future.

Girls in our culture are caught in the crossfire of our culture's mixed sexual messages. Sex is considered both a sacred act between two people united by God and the best way to sell suntan lotion.

There is no getting away from it: the old Christian rule is "Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence." Chastity is the most unpopular of our Christian virtues.

Sexual satisfaction is not a right, but a blessing.

Speaker Josh McDowell conducted a survey of teenagers from evangelical churches and discovered they had learned about sex from the following sources (respondents could select more than one):

friends (28 percent)

movies (26 percent)

classes at school (23 percent)

parents (23 percent)

television (22 percent)

church (7 percent)